Current light source technologies, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), offer long life and lower power consumption relative to older technologies, including halogen and incandescent-based light sources. Reduced electrical power consumption by a vehicle can provide increased vehicle fuel efficiency. The longer lifetimes associated with LEDs can justify their relatively higher cost compared to other light sources.
LED lights, however, have certain disadvantages when employed in vehicle signaling applications. For example, LEDs are highly directional in the sense that they produce high light output over a relatively small area. Light sources that rely on LEDs often have an undesirable appearance with bright hot spots. This characteristic may limit the use of standard LEDs in vehicle signaling applications that require homogeneous light output over a large area. LEDs also have lower light output limits relative to other lighting technologies. Consequently, numerous LEDs may need to be employed in conventional light source assembly arrangements, resulting in high cost and power consumption levels for these light assemblies.
In view of the above, it is apparent that there exists a need for vehicle light assemblies for signaling applications that produce uniform light output, use relatively little power and can be manufactured at relatively low cost.